


people on the high line

by oryx



Category: Kamen Rider Gaim
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Slice of Life, Sugar Daddy, no helheim or riders or any of that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2018-09-28 01:45:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10063829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oryx/pseuds/oryx
Summary: In which Takatora has too much of everything, except perhaps what he needs.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> the wholesome awkward sugar daddy fic that literally no one was asking for
> 
> with my track record i may never update this, but. i started it like 8 months ago so there's no way i'm not posting what i've got after staring at it for this long

It starts with a _thump_.  
   
Takatora can feel it – the moment the car collides with something alarmingly solid. The driver slams on the brakes and he has to throw out a hand to steady himself, a reflexive death grip around his phone.  
   
“What was that?” he demands, and the driver turns slowly to look him, his expression one of pure shellshocked fear, knuckles white around the steering wheel.  
   
“He – he just came out of nowhere,” he stammers. “I didn’t even see him, he just – oh no. Oh no, oh no.”  
   
He repeats that phrase over and over as he fumbles for his seatbelt and the door handle, hands shaking visibly as he exits the car. Takatora follows, with the kind of trepidation he hasn’t felt in a very long time. There’s a bicycle on the pavement in front of the car, parts of it bent in ways a bicycle probably shouldn’t be, its front wheel still spinning freely. And the cyclist…  
   
They’re lying facedown in the street, unmoving, and Takatora can hear a strange, choked sort of sound wrench its way out of his driver. Takatora approaches the prone figure warily, hand already moving to dial 119, but pauses when he sees them twitch. If they were knocked unconscious, it seems to have worn off quickly enough, which he supposes is a good sign. He watches in astonishment as they gradually push themself up, getting to their feet and swaying a bit before turning towards him.  
   
He’s young, maybe twenty or so, a bit shorter than Takatora, with a shock of dark hair and a face that seems like it would be innately affable in any other circumstance. As it were, in this moment he just looks rather dazed. The blood pouring from a nasty gash along his hairline certainly isn’t helping things – he swipes at it with the back of his hand as it starts dripping into his field of vision, smearing dark red across his cheek.  
   
“Are – are you alright?” Takatora asks. He supposes that’s a silly question, but this person is smiling at him so benignly as he bleeds. There is, he notices, a nametag sown on to his windbreaker. Kouta.  
   
“Me? Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” Kouta says with a laugh. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve had,” and here he makes a vague, shaky gesture, “ _way_ worse than this.” His smile fades into slackjawed seriousness as he stares up at Takatora, his eyes going all distant and unfocused for a second before focusing again. “Wow,” he says, as the blood from his head wound trickles down the side of his neck. “You’re really handsome.”  
   
Takatora blinks at him.  
   
“I think,” he says coaxingly, “you should probably go to the hospital. I can call you an ambulance if you’d like, or my driver can personally take you – ”  
   
“Oh, no,” Kouta says. “I can’t do that right now. I’m in the middle of a delivery.” An unpleasant thought seems to occur to him, then, and he pats himself down with panicked urgency, pulling a small package from beneath his windbreaker and shaking it very gently. Whatever is inside must still be intact, as visible relief flickers across his face.  
   
And at that he reaches down to heft his mangled bike up off the pavement, testing its balance for a moment before swinging a leg up over the seat.  
   
Takatora reaches out to grab him by the arm. “I _really_ think you need immediate medical attention,” he says, disbelieving. “You can’t possibly go back to work like that.”  
   
“But I just got this job,” Kouta says, eyes wide and slightly manic as he looks over at Takatora. That together with the blood, which by now is covering the entire left half of his face, makes for a rather startling image. “You don’t know how long it took me to find one. I can’t afford to get fired.” He smiles weakly. “Thanks, though. For being so nice. Sorry about – about your car. If I scratched it, I mean.”  
   
“That’s not – ” Takatora begins to say, but Kouta is already pulling free from his grip and peddling unsteadily away. He glances over his shoulder and waves – the bike veering wildly in the process – before turning the corner and vanishing from sight.  
   
“So,” his driver says, after a prolonged, astonished silence. “He’s not pressing charges, then?”  
   
“…I doubt he’d have much of a case even if he tried,” Takatora muses. He turns to inspect the car’s headlights for damage, but as he does so his foot connects with something. A broken plastic placard of a sort, which he assumes must have fallen from Kouta’s bike. _Kachidoki Deliveries_ , it reads, the name and logo just barely visible beneath dirt and scratches.  
   
(Later, he won’t remember why he pocketed it. Only that at the time it seemed the most natural thing in the world.)  
   
  
   
  
   
Four days later he opens his desk drawer in search of a business card to instead find that same broken placard staring up at him. In this week’s seemingly unending stream of board meetings and conference calls he’d all but forgotten about that incident, but now it comes back to him in a sudden and vivid rush, and he stares down at _Kachidoki Deliveries_ with a sense of nagging worry in the back of his mind. That deliveryman had been more than a little worse for the wear. Surely it would only be right, to make sure that nothing too awful had happened to him?  
   
He types the name into Yggdrasill’s own search engine – finds an address and a phone number and jots down both into his notebook before tapping the intercom for his secretary.  
   
“I’m stepping out for a bit,” he says. “Tell my 2:30 that I’ll have to take a rain check.”  
   
  
   
  
   
The woman behind the counter lowers her magazine slowly as he steps inside. She gives him a curious once-over, eyes lingering on the engraved silver cufflinks of his suit.  
   
“I have a feeling you’re not here about a delivery,” she says.  
   
“Ah, no,” Takatora says, apologetic. “I’m looking for someone, actually. An employee named Kouta?”  
   
“Kazuraba?” She sounds, if possible, even more skeptical than before. “You’re… a friend of his, then?”  
   
“More of an acquaintance.”  
   
“Right,” the woman says slowly. She shakes her head in astonishment. “Well, he’s out back in the garage trying to tune up his bike.” Her voice drops to a barely-audible mutter as she continues: “As much good as that’ll do.”  
   
The garage is cluttered and hectic and smells strongly of old rubber, with spare bicycle parts strewn across every surface. Kazuraba is the only one in the place, head bent and cursing under his breath as he fiddles with one of his bike’s pedals, which is still stuck at a rather precarious angle. He glances up with a start when Takatora lifts a hand and raps his knuckles against the doorframe. There’s gauze bandaged to his forehead, a reminder of his injury, but now, looking at him without blood dripping from his chin, Takatora is struck by how pleasant his face actually is. There’s a smudge of what looks like oil on the bridge of his nose and it is, in this moment, the most inexplicably charming thing Takatora has ever seen.  
   
“I’m sorry for disturbing you,” he says. “I was just hoping to – ”  
   
“Ah!” Kazuraba exclaims, looking stricken. “You’re the guy from the other day!” His face falls even further. “You’re… you’re here about your car, aren’t you? I had a feeling I probably damaged something…”  
   
“What?” Takatora can feel his brow furrow. “No, that’s – please don’t concern yourself with that,” he says firmly. “I just came by to make sure you weren’t injured too badly.”  
   
It’s Kazuraba’s turn to look startled. “Oh. Yeah, I’m – I’m alright.” He gestures at his bandages with a weak grin. “Sixteen stitches, but otherwise everything’s good.” A pause. “Can’t really say the same for my bike, though.”  
   
He reaches out to morosely spin the pedals, which grind to a sudden halt halfway through their rotation, the chain making a desperate, sad-sounding scraping noise.  
   
“The model’s so old that they don’t make replacement parts for it anymore,” he laughs. “Just my luck.”  
   
Takatora takes a few steps closer, leaning in to examine the thing – the rust speckling the handlebars and the fraying seams along the seat.  
   
“How much does one cost?” he asks, the words slipping out before he has time to think about them. “A newer model, I mean.”  
   
“Oh, are you looking to get one?” Kazuraba’s face lights up. He knocks some spare nuts and bolts aside and pulls a magazine from a nearby stack, flipping to a spread and holding it out for Takatora to see: glossy photos of a sleek blue racing bike, words like “highmodulus” and “aerodynamic” splashed across the page in bold font. Retail price: 370,000 yen.  
   
“This is the one everyone who works here is jealous of,” Kazuraba is saying, with a twinge of wistfulness in his voice. “It’s getting good reviews, so if you’re wanting to…”  
   
He trails off, staring at Takatora’s hands as he takes his checkbook and fountain pen out of his pocket.  
   
“How do you write your first name?” Takatora asks. “With ‘peace’?”  
   
“No, with ‘truth,’” Kazuraba murmurs, like a rote response, before blinking and shaking his head as if to clear his thoughts. “Sorry, why’re you asking?”  
   
Takatora finishes writing with a dot of finality and tears the check out, handing it to a very bewildered-looking Kazuraba, whose eyes widen in shock as he looks down at it. He reaches out to grip the corner of a nearby workbench as if he were steadying himself.  
   
“That’s – I can’t accept this,” he stammers.  
   
“It’s only right, I think,” Takatora says. “Since my car damaged your property, I should pay for a replacement.”  
   
“But it was my fault! The entire thing was my fault, and – and I don’t even know you,” he finishes lamely. He peers closer at the check in his hand. “Kureshima Takatora?” he reads aloud, and after a beat his head snaps up, looking (if possible) even more alarmed than before. “Kureshima as in… _the_ Kureshimas? Like Yggdrasill?”  
   
Takatora can feel his mouth curve into a frown. “Did I not introduce myself? I apologize, in that case.” He procures a business card from his other pocket and hands that to Kazuraba as well, who accepts it gingerly, his expression somewhat dumbstruck. “Now that I think of it, I should probably reimburse you for your hospital bill, too. Would 50,000 cover it?”  
   
He goes to reach for his checkbook again, but Kazuraba makes a strangled noise and lifts a hand as if to stop him.  
   
“That’s okay,” he says quickly. “It was just stitches, so. It wasn’t much.” His laugh is tinged with awkwardness as he runs a hand through his hair, leaving a few strands sticking up at odd angles. “All the people I could’ve crashed my bike into… My sister works for you, y’know. In advertising. She’s kinda – kinda low-level, though. You’ve probably never even met her.” He smiles weakly. “I dunno why I’m telling you this.”  
   
“…It’s fine,” Takatora says, making a mental note to run the name Kazuraba through their personnel files later. “I… forget, sometimes, how large my own company is. Things seem smaller from my position, strange as that might seem.”  
   
Kazuraba blinks. “Really,” he murmurs, and looks as if he’s about to say something else until he abruptly remembers the check in his hand, shoving it back at Takatora like it’s hot to the touch. “Seriously though, I – I can’t accept this. Thank you, but. It’s way too much.”  
   
“…I see.” Takatora wonders why he feels so disappointed as he takes the check back, as he rips it in half and lets the pieces fall into the rubbish. (He wonders what kind of reaction he was hoping for. Amazement and starry-eyed gratitude and a blinding bright smile?) He’s still half in the midst of pondering when he hears himself say: “If money on its own is no good, let me give you a job offer, then. One that pays better than this one.”  
   
Kazuraba laughs, sheepish, reaching up to palm the back of his neck. “Oh, that’s. I dunno. I’m not exactly… qualified to work for Yggdrasill, I don’t think?”  
   
“Not for Yggdrasill,” Takatora says. “For me, personally. I’ve been looking for,” and here his mind cycles hastily through about ten possibilities before settling on: “a catsitter.”  
   
Kazuraba stares at him in silence for a long moment before eloquently saying, “huh?”  
   
  
   
  
   
It’s not entirely a lie. He does, in fact, have a cat – his only reliable companion in his too-large apartment (save perhaps the cleaning lady who drops by once every two weeks).  
   
Except he isn’t home as often as he’d like to be. The cat in question, a little black and white thing that his driver found huddled underneath the car one morning, has seemed more than a little bored and irritable lately, often flicking its tail in annoyance when he tries to approach it and attacking his ankles as he passes from room to room. He has, in fact, thought to himself that he should hire someone to come by once in while, to play with it and pet it and do all those things that responsible pet owners are technically supposed to do.  
   
He’d just assumed he would end up asking one of the neighbor’s kids a few floors down, is all.  
   
Kazuraba’s eyes are wide as Takatora shows him through the door.  
   
“This is so nice,” he murmurs, stumbling a bit as he tries to take off his shoes while still staring at the decor. “You could fit like six of our apartment in here.”  
   
“I could give you a quick tour, if you’d like,” Takatora says. “Or would you rather get acquainted with the job first? He should be – ah.”  
   
He’s curled up on the sofa as is typical for this time of day, once again blatantly ignoring the cat bed just a few feet away, a sliver of green eyes visible as he surreptitiously watches them. He opens them fully and lifts his head when Kazuraba kneels down next to him, leveling him with an appraising look.  
   
“What’s his name?” he asks.  
   
“Mitsuzane.”  
   
Kazuraba raises an eyebrow, the corner of his mouth curving into an amused smile. “Mitsuzane?” he echoes. “That’s really what you really named your cat?”  
   
“Is there something strange about that?”  
   
“Nah, it’s just. Most people pick something simple and cute for a cat, don’t they? Like ‘Maru’ or ‘Kuro’ or ‘Mikan.’” He shakes his head. “But… I guess Mitsuzane is good, too. In its own way. He could probably use a nickname, though. Don’t you think? ‘Micchi,’ maybe?”  
   
The newly christened Micchi blinks slowly, as if he were accepting his new nickname. He looks the most content he’s looked in a while as Kazuraba reaches out to stroke the top of his head.  
   
“Be careful with him,” Takatora cautions. “He tends to turn on people without warning. I have the scars to prove it.”  
   
“Really? He seems so friendly, though.” He grins down at the cat, who tilts his head contentedly so that Kazuraba can rub his chin. “I’ve sort of always wanted a cat. They don’t allow pets in our building, though.”  
   
“…’Our’?” Takatora says, after a moment of hesitation. “So you live with someone?”  
   
“Oh, just my sister. The one I talked about before. Akira. She’s always taken care of me, ever since our parents died. She’s probably… kinda wishing I’d move out soon, though.” His laugh has a note of embarrassment to it. “I’d like to, but. It’s just not really doable, things being like they are. Money and all that.”  
   
This time, Takatora is fully certain of his own words when he says:  
   
“Would you like to stay here?”  
   
Kazuraba stares at him for a long moment, open-mouthed, his hand still resting on the cat. “You’re joking,” he says. When Takatora shakes his head to indicate otherwise he leaps abruptly to his feet, startling Mitsuzane in the process, whose tail is fluffed in indignation as he tears out the room.  
   
“That’s – you hardly even know me, though,” Kazuraba stammers, looking somewhat lost. “I could… I dunno, steal your stuff, or something.”  
   
Takatora gazes dispassionately around the room, at the ornate oil paintings from his father’s collection, canvases rich with blooming flowers and dancing women and stuccoed Italian village streets (he can recite fifty bits of trivia about each of them, and yet he can’t remember the last time they made him feel anything). At his state-of-the-art flatscreen that he flips on once a week at most, so thin and light that two burglars could make off with it easily. At his flower vase from an upscale dealer in Hong Kong that he hardly remembers buying, at his secondary laptop and phone that (like usual) lie forgotten on the counter, at his 17,000 yen tie draped haphazard across the back of a chair.  
   
“I could probably live with that,” he says dryly. “And you don’t really strike me as the thieving type. Wouldn’t you have just accepted my check if you were that desperate?”  
   
Kazuraba opens his mouth and then closes it again wordlessly.  
   
“It would be in both of our best interests, I think,” Takatora continues. “Mitsuzane will warm up to you more quickly if you become a fixture. And I…” He trails off. An image flashes through his mind of having someone to come home to instead of yawning silence, of this person being there smiling when he steps through the door. Kazuraba is looking at him curiously, and he clears his throat before hurrying to finish: “And I wouldn’t have to worry about you getting run over by any other cars on your commute.”  
   
Kazuraba’s laugh is sharp and startled, as if he hadn’t expected to ever hear a joke coming from his mouth. “I – I guess, yeah,” he says. “It’s just kind of – ”  
   
Takatora holds up a hand. “If you need time to consider, that’s perfectly fine. It’s simply an option. Rent would be deducted from your pay, of course, probably about five percent, but…” And here his voice fades into nothing again as he catches sight of Kazuraba’s expression – troubled and contemplative, his brow knit together in a way that Takatora can’t help but find adorable.  
   
“You… Why are you being so nice to me?” he asks.  
   
I don’t know, is what Takatora thinks. I don’t know why I’m doing any of this. Except that there must have been a reason for why I picked up that placard from the street and took it with me. For why I found it days later and didn’t just throw it away.  
   
“Am I?” is what he says instead. “Personally, I like to think I’m being fair rather than ‘nice.’ I would have offered the same to anyone.”  
   
He hears a faint meow and looks down to see Mitsuzane sitting by his feet with his tail curled around his paws, staring up at him balefully with those alarmingly huge green eyes. _It’s not a lie_ , he’s almost tempted to say, feeling a tad defensive before he blinks and remembers himself. Talking to the cat is the last thing he needs to start doing right now.  
   
(Even a cat with such an oddly human-like personality as this one.)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh boy, an update 7 months later. for me that's honestly not bad.  
> thanks everyone for the nice responses to this fic... i really wasn't expecting it? ;; i'll try to get the next chapter finished in a more timely manner

“Someone’s in a good mood.”  
   
Takatora glances up from where he’s flipping through a binder of product test documents to find Ryoma leaning back in his chair, looking at him with one eyebrow raised.  
   
“Am I?”  
   
“You haven’t made your usual ‘this is all going over budget’ face _once_ since you started looking over that report. And I saw you smiling for no reason at those clerks you passed in the hall.” With a thoughtful hum, Ryoma tilts his head to the side, observing Takatora keenly, as if he were another one of his projects. “Don’t tell me something fun happened in your tedious life for once.”  
   
Takatora ponders this. “…I’m not sure about ‘fun,’” he says slowly. As he tries to put into words the pleasant feeling that’s been following him around for the past two weeks, he happens to glance past Ryoma’s shoulder to the clock on his computer screen.  
   
“Ah,” he says, snapping the binder shut in his hands. “I’m going to be taking an early day, actually. If someone from the Board comes looking for me, could you let them know? I have a – a prior engagement.”  
   
Ryoma raises both of his eyebrows this time. “An _early day_? You? Now you’ve really got me wondering. Is it a date? Please say it’s a date.”  
   
Takatora huffs out a quiet laugh and doesn’t answer.  
   
  
   
  
   
In the end, he arrives in time to see only the last two minutes or so of the performance. He loiters behind the last row of seats, feeling distinctly out of place next to the teens and college-aged kids in bright neon street clothes that make up the audience. The dancing, too, is not quite what he’s used to. There’s an energy about it that’s hard to look away from. His father used to drag him out to “experience the arts” when he was a child – theatre, opera, and dance, too: ballet and contemporary and sweeping ballroom waltzes. Polished, certainly. Beautiful, though at age twelve he’d been too young to truly appreciate it. But none of those dancers ever looked nearly as alive as Kazuraba and his friends up on that stage right now.  
   
As the music fades and applause erupts, Takatora slips out the door and heads back to his car, where he leans against the door and watches the performance-goers dispersing. He can see one girl glance his way and then turn back to her friends to confer with them in hushed tones, and imagines he must look somewhat suspicious. He probably should have thought to wear something a bit more casual. (Then again, he doesn’t own much other than suits.)  
   
“Takatora!”  
   
He glances up to see Kazuraba weaving his way through the crowd, grinning brightly as he waves, and Takatora lifts a hand in return, feeling himself relax as a soft kind of warmth settles in his chest.  
   
“Did you see any of it?” Kazuraba asks as he jogs up to meet him. A few of his dance crew teammates are following in his wake.  
   
“Just the very end,” Takatora says. “It was,” and here he struggles to put his feelings into words while Kazuraba looks at him anxiously, “good. Vibrant. I mean it. You all are very talented.”  
   
Kazuraba’s answering smile is a bit like staring into the sun.  
   
“Oh,” he says, seeming to remember in a sudden instant that his friends are with him. “Um. These are my teammates. Mai,” the girl with the pigtails smiles prettily, “and Rat and Rica.” The other two incline their heads, looking more than a little put off by him. He imagines they don’t get introduced to many stiff, boring businessmen on a daily basis. “This is Takatora. Like I was telling you guys about.”  
   
“Nice to meet you,” Mai says. She gives Kazuraba a sidelong, knowing sort of look which he seems to be pretending not to see.  
   
“Likewise,” Takatora says, and hesitates for a moment. “Do… the three of you need a lift somewhere? It wouldn’t be any trouble, and I would feel a bit unkind just leaving you here.”  
   
Despite her obvious guardedness, the other girl – Rica – looks like she might be contemplating his offer. She bites her lip and opens her mouth as if to say something only to be seemingly elbowed in the side by Mai.  
   
“No, no, don’t worry about us,” Mai says, her tone light. “We were planning to hang around here a little longer anyway. So you two go ahead.  
   
“Make sure to do your job properly, Kouta,” she says to him, looking vaguely amused as she grabs her two friends by the shirt sleeves and tugs them away.  
   
“Wh – of course I will,” he protests, rounding on his heel to glare at her, but she simply waves over her shoulder with a grin before vanishing into the still-thronging crowd.  
   
Kazuraba looks somewhat startled when he notices the lack of a driver. He slides into the passenger seat with wide eyes, reaching out to touch the paneling before seeming to think better of it and yanking his hand back. He leans back against the leather headrest and whispers “wow” under his breath. Takatora can feel him watching him as he checks his mirrors and pulls out into the mild stream of mid-day traffic.  
   
“I guess I wasn’t expecting to see you driving yourself around,” he says.  
   
Takatora smiles a bit at that. “My father was always very insistent that I have as many life skills as possible. He didn’t want me to be one of those ‘fortunate’ people who can’t do a single thing for themselves.” A pause. “I suppose I’m thankful to him for that, at least.”  
   
Kazuraba seems like he’s about to ask him to elaborate on that topic, but thankfully thinks better of it, nodding silently and only speaking up again a minute later to say:  
   
“Aren’t we going back to your place?”  
   
“I thought we’d get lunch first,” Takatora says. “You must be hungry, right? And I’m not much of a chef, despite what I just said about life skills.”  
   
He glances over just in time to see Kazuraba grin. “What, you can’t cook either? That… makes me feel a little better, honestly. Maybe we can teach each other through, like… trial and error at some point.”  
   
There it is again – that pleasant, floaty sort of feeling. Takatora’s shoulders relax a bit, his needlessly tight grip on the wheel loosening just a little.  
   
“I’d like that,” he says softly.  
   
  
   
  
   
“I was kinda worried,” Kazuraba admits, “that it was gonna be some really fancy place.” He laughs and claps Takatora on the back hard enough to tip him forward. “This is way better.”  
   
He takes a seat at the counter and immediately leans in to place his order with the chef (shio ramen with an extra egg), and Takatora joins him a moment later, feeling once again out of place in this relaxed environment, his shirt cuffs too tight around his wrists. He folds and re-folds his hands on the countertop as the cook stares at him expectantly.  
   
“Ah,” he says, and hesitates, searching in vain for a menu before giving up and indicating towards Kouta. “The same as him.”  
   
The look the man gives him seems to see right through him.  
   
“I’m surprised you eat at places like this,” Kazuraba is saying, sipping at the glass of water that was just set in front of him. “You just seem… I dunno. Too ‘cultured,’ I guess.”  
   
Takatora makes a noncommittal noise. Truth be told, he has never in his life been to an establishment like this. Over the past two weeks he’s come to the realization that Kazuraba is made uncomfortable by anything he deems too lavish or affluent, and so made a concerted effort to locate a restaurant that might be more to his liking, trawling intensively through online reviews and even asking Minato for her input on the matter. (She’d raised an eyebrow at him but given him a whole list of suggestions nonetheless.)  
   
“Wait,” Kazuraba says, frowning. “You didn’t take off work just to come pick me up, did you?”  
   
Takatora waves a hand as if to dismiss the thought. “It’s fine. I need to get out of that place more often anyhow. That’s what everyone’s always telling me.”  
   
Kazuraba seems to accept this after a moment of thought, and launches into a slightly exasperated-sounding recount of the part of the performance Takatora missed – something about Team Baron being pointlessly competitive again, seriously this was meant to just be a casual thing and they’re always like this, y’know? (Takatora does not know, but he feels like he puts together another small piece of the puzzle each time he listens to Kazuraba talk about this unfamiliar world.)  
   
Their food is placed in front of them while Kazuraba is still in the middle of his story, and Takatora blinks down at his bowl of noodles, privately astonished by the promptness. To think, all this time he could have been waiting a mere five minutes for lunch. He takes a bite and can feel his eyes widen further.  
   
“This is good,” he murmurs.  
   
“Right? I get the same thing every time I come here.” He lifts the bowl to sip at the broth, and when he lowers it his expression looks somewhat troubled. “Hey, Takatora.”  
   
“Hm?”  
   
“What you said before… about me maybe coming to stay at your place. Is – is that still on the table?”  
   
Takatora stares at him, watching as the back of his neck turns a light shade of pink under the scrutiny.  
   
“It’s just. My sister. She brought her date back to apartment the other night and it seemed like she was about to invite him in, and. Then she realized I was home.” He grimaces. “It sucks, y’know? Feeling like you’re in the way. Like you’re holding someone back from living their life or whatever.  
   
“And it would be easier, like you said,” he adds hurriedly. “To look after Micchi.”  
   
Takatora wonders what this feeling is – like a contented hum in the back of his mind, an odd kind of warmth prickling at his skin.  
   
“Of course,” he says. “You would be more than welcome, if you’d like to move in. I can show you the second bedroom when we get back.”  
   
Kazuraba’s eyes light up as he grins.  
   
  
   
  
   
“When you said ‘second bedroom’ I guess I thought it’d be… smaller than this?”  
   
Takatora arches an eyebrow. “If you really want a smaller room, you could take the guest bedroom instead.”  
   
“The guest – _there’s another besides this_?”  
   
“It’s the door at the end of the hall.”  
   
Kazuraba makes a disbelieving noise. He’s standing there by the foot of the bed, cradling Mitsuzane in his arms and stroking the cat’s chin absently as he stares around the room. Takatora supposes it is a bit much. He’d imagined, when he first bought this place, that his father might at some point come to visit and stay in the second bedroom, and thus he had decorated accordingly – with an antique bureau and a massive, canopied four-poster and the most extravagant oil paintings he could find hanging on the walls.  
   
Of course, his father had never made it to spend a weekend with him. Takatora wonders why he’s left this room so unchanged in the time since. Not out of sentimentality, certainly.  
   
“We can switch up the decor in here, if you like,” he offers.  
   
“That’s – I can’t ask you to do that.”  
   
Takatora shakes his head. “I want to. I’m more than a little tired of all this myself.” He picks up an old book – more like a tome, really – with a faded title from the nearby shelf and frowns at it before putting it back. “By the time you move in this place will look a bit more modern, I promise.”  
   
Mitsuzane is squirming to be put down, and Kazuraba obligingly places him on the bedspread, taking a seat on the edge of the bed himself and leaning back on his hands.  
   
“Move in,” he echoes, and smiles broadly. “I know I’m the one who brought it up, but. I dunno. It’s kinda crazy, right? Thinking about being roommates.”  
   
Takatora isn’t sure how to respond to that. The word ‘roommates’ seems to hang suspended in the air over his head. He opens his mouth to say something but is interrupted by the quiet buzz of his phone in his pocket, which he fishes out, giving Kazuraba an apologetic look.  
   
“I have to take this,” he says. “Pardon me for a moment. And I’m not sure if you received a notification about it, but I had your first paycheck deposited earlier. Let me know if there’s any issue.”  
   
Kazuraba nods, his eyes wide, and Takatora steps out the room, shutting the door behind him as he presses his phone to his ear.  
   
“The lady from the Board wasn’t very pleased with this whole ‘early day’ concept,” Ryoma’s voice says without so much as a greeting. “Just a heads up, since I’m such a good friend and all. You might’ve picked the wrong time to skip out on work.”  
   
Takatora huffs out a weary laugh, scrubbing a hand across his face. “As if they really need me to make decisions. They always get their way no matter my input.”  
   
“They know you for a pushover, Takatora-chan. Too bad you didn’t inherit your old man’s wiles.”  
   
Takatora is silent for a long moment.  
   
“Yes,” he says finally. “Too bad.”  
   
He says his terse goodbyes and hangs up; glances back at the closed door with an even stronger, somewhat inexplicable urge to remodel the room right this very second.  
   
He wanders out into the kitchen as he scrolls through the sites of several high-end furniture dealers. Something refreshing, he’s thinking, something colourful and bright, just like –  
   
Kazuraba’s muffled yell from a few rooms over nearly makes him drop his phone. He careens in the kitchen several seconds later, his own phone clutched in hand and looking rather distraught.  
   
“This,” he says, turning the screen towards Takatora. It appears to be his bank account balance, which he can’t help but notice is not much different from the amount he’d arranged for deposit earlier. “This… for looking after your cat?”  
   
Takatora blinks. “Is it not enough?”  
   
“What – no! I mean. Yes? The opposite of that!” He turns the screen back towards himself, running a hand through his hair and shaking his head in shock as he stares at it. “No way is me watching your cat worth this much.”  
   
“You’ve done an exemplary job thus far,” Takatora says simply. “I see no reason why it wouldn’t be.” Kazuraba’s expression is still taken aback when he continues: “Now, how do you feel about art deco?”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (staring at the calendar whilst grimacing) well, here we are again, way too many months later,  
> thanks again to everyone for supporting this, my corniest work. :') and we in some Real corny territory this time so buckle tf up folks

  
In the week leading up to Kazuraba moving in, some part of him keeps imagining that the world will tilt on its axis. That he will wake up the morning after to find some aspect of his life drastically altered.  
   
But as his alarm goes off at its usual time of seven, as he gets out of bed and goes through the motions, he finds that everything feels much the same. In the hall Kazuraba’s door is closed – too early for him to be awake, he supposes – and so Takatora goes about his morning as he has for more than a year now. He feeds Mitsuzane, who winds between his legs in a seemingly intentional attempt at tripping him. He puts the news on mute and sips at a cup of instant coffee as he scrolls through his e-mail.  
   
He leaves the silent apartment and locks the door behind him and goes down to meet his driver as if it were any other day.  
   
In the office he finds little that needs his direct hands-on attention at the moment, the possible acquisition of a smaller rival company still not yet in the stage for talks, and so around noon he takes the imposing stack of official documents that still need signing and tells Minato he’ll get through them at home. She ‘hmm’s thoughtfully.  
   
“If that’s what you want to do, sir,” she says, with the knowing air of someone who’s heard all about his uncharacteristic  _early day_  last week from Ryoma. Complete with his highly scientific hypotheses about Takatora’s personal life as well, he’s sure.  
   
(Sometimes he wonders what it says about him, that Sengoku Ryoma is his only remaining friend from his college days.)  
   
He returns to the apartment to find Kazuraba sitting on the couch and nursing a bleeding hand.  
   
“Ah,” he says, blinking up at him. “You’re home already…?”  
   
Takatora leaves that half-asked question hanging in the air. “Did he finally get you?” he asks instead, dropping the folder of documents on the counter and walking over to examine the damage. It’s an unfortunate one – long and deep, a vivid red scratch that curves around his thumb and across the back of his hand. The blood welling from it is trickling down the inside of his wrist.  
   
“Oh. Yeah.” Kazuraba laughs, sheepish. “I guess I just got him too riled up or something. I know it wasn’t him being, like… cruel or anything. That’s just how animals are.”  
   
That, Takatora isn’t so sure of. While he’s certain that most cats do not harbor any feelings of genuine malice towards people, Mitsuzane is not most cats.  
   
“Do we… have any bandages?” Kazuraba is asking. The offhanded way in which he says ‘we’ seems to get caught in the back of Takatora’s mind, sitting there like a weight. “I tried looking around, but. I still don’t really know where anything is yet.”  
   
“Hall bathroom, beneath the sink,” Takatora says, but lifts a hand as Kazuraba gets to his feet. “I’ll get them. You stay here.”  
   
He returns with the first aid kit tucked beneath his arm to find Kazuraba still standing there, fidgeting in place, looking somewhat lost and uncomfortable.  
   
“You don’t – ” he starts, but breaks off as Takatora takes his hand in his own. His palm is warm beneath his fingertips, and he can feel him looking up at him from beneath his eyelashes as he sets about dabbing the blood away and wrapping a bandage around the cut.  
   
“I don’t what?”  
   
“You don’t… have to do things like this for me,” Kazuraba says stiltedly. “I mean. You already pay me more money for this job than I deserve.”  
   
“It’s no problem,” Takatora says, keeping his tone brusque. He secures the bandage in place and finds himself hesitating a moment with his fingertips pressed against Kazuraba’s wrist before letting his hands fall away. “I realize you live here now. But part of me still considers you a guest. And it’s only right to show your guests a certain courtesy.”  
   
If he didn’t know any better, he’d identify the emotion that flickers across Kazuraba’s face as disappointment.  
   
“Right,” he murmurs. “Yeah, that – that makes sense.”  
   
Takatora turns away, straightening the cuffs of his sleeves. “I am sorry. About Mitsuzane. It seems like he gave you a grace period, but he’ll probably be making your life difficult from now on.”  
   
Kazuraba huffs out a quiet laugh. “I think I can deal with it,” he says, flexing his hand experimentally. “Y’know, I… was about to go out to the store to get some groceries, actually. Since we kinda don’t have much.”  
   
Takatora blinks. “We don’t?”  
   
Kazuraba grabs him by the wrist and marches him over to the kitchen to stare at the rather depressingly sparse interior of the refrigerator.  
   
“Ah,” he says. He remembers now in a rush of clarity that he meant to do something about that before the move-in date, that normal people tended to keep food in their homes. It must have slipped his mind amid all the last-minute redecorating.  
   
“I dunno what I expected a rich person’s fridge to look like,” Kazuraba is saying, an amused kind of exasperation written across his face. “But. Probably not this?”  
   
“That is unfortunate, isn’t it,” Takatora muses. That bottle of wine in the back has been there since last year, he’s fairly certain. He reaches into his jacket pocket for his wallet, leafing through the bills inside and withdrawing a handful of them, holding them out for Kazuraba to take. “This should cover a shopping trip.”  
   
Kazuraba’s brow knits together. “I have money of my own.”  
   
“You only just moved in yesterday. You shouldn’t be required to spend it on groceries.”  
   
“That’s – ” He breaks off with a sigh of resignation, making a quiet, frustrated noise, and hesitates another moment before accepting the money – gingerly, as if it were something fragile. “Fine. I’m buying next time, though.”  
   
His determined almost-pout as he says this makes something warm well up in the hollow of Takatora’s chest.  
   
“Of course,” he says, placating.  
   
  
   
  
   
The sheaf of documents from the office is only half-completed by the time the sun starts to set behind him, the orangeish light slanting across his desk. He leans back in his seat and stretches out his back, his arms, the dull ache between his shoulderblades still persistent no matter what tries. He sighs and reaches for the next file in the stack –  
   
His hand stills, hovering just above it.  
   
Someone is cooking something. He’d been too absorbed in finishing this mess to notice, but there it is – the thick, spice-laden smell of curry. He only has one immediate neighbor, and they are rarely home, which means. Someone is cooking something  _in his apartment_. That concept alone gives him pause.  
   
He wanders out into the kitchen to find Kazuraba with his sleeves rolled up, standing over a simmering pot that he is watching with singular intent, except for his occasional reassuring glances at his phone, where he must have the recipe open. The countertops are littered with ingredients and measuring tools that Takatora didn’t even know he owned.  
   
Kazuraba glances up, eyes brightening as he realizes he’s standing there. “Hey, sorry about all this mess,” he says. “And I know we were talking about learning to cook together, but. I kinda wanted to figure out to how to make at least one thing before I moved in, y’know? Though it’s probably… not very good.”  
   
It takes Takatora a second to respond. “You… didn’t have to do this,” he says.  
   
Kazuraba frowns. “But I wanted to.” Some kind of alarm that he set for himself on his phone goes off, then, and he hurries to taste the contents of the pot before shaking his head and dumping some more spices into it. “It’ll be done in like fifteen minutes, maybe? You are… hungry, right?”  
   
A look of worry crosses his face, as if he hadn’t even considered that possibility, and Takatora hurries to assuage him.  
   
“I am,” he says quickly. “Very.”  
   
Kazuraba’s answering smile makes him feel rooted to the spot for a moment, standing there with the tension gradually draining from his shoulders. He can’t feel that dull ache anymore, he realizes, and wonders how that’s possible.  
   
The food is not necessarily good. There’s a clunky awkwardness to the taste, a flavor that’s more than a little overbearing, and yet.  
   
“You’re a much better chef than you give yourself credit for,” he says, and Kazuraba gives him a disbelieving look from across the table. He takes a bite of his own and makes an unimpressed face.  
   
“You don’t have to lie to make me feel better,” he laughs, and Takatora shakes his head.  
   
“I’m not,” he says. “Truly. It’s…”  
   
_Comforting._  Just like all of this – Kazuraba being here, his shoes lining the entranceway and his laptop sitting forgotten on the far end of the counter, videos of a Beat Rider competition still playing at a quiet, muffled volume. This day hasn’t felt strange because instead it has felt easy and right, like wearing a freshly-tailored shirt.  
   
Would “I’m glad you’re here” be a strange thing to say? He supposes it would, and so he simply takes another bite of his curry, and listens intently to Kazuraba talk about a story he saw on the news earlier as outside the evening starts to turn into night.  
   
  
   
  
   
  
   
The unexpected buzzing of the intercom comes on a Saturday, when Kouta is out at practice and he has just finished setting up a lunch meeting with two foreign CPOs.  
   
“There’s someone here to see you, sir,” the front desk clerk says. “A… Kazuraba Akira? Were you expecting her, by any chance?”  
   
Takatora pauses with his hand on the intercom button.  
   
“I… yes,” he lies. (Although it’s not entirely a lie, is it? Somehow he’d had a feeling that he would be meeting her soon.) “Thank you. You can send her up.”  
   
He knows Kazuraba Akira’s face from her personnel file, and from a picture on Kouta’s phone, but the woman in front of him when he opens the door is much more composed than even her photos let on, not a hair out of place as she stands there with her hands clasped, giving him a look that he can only describe as “coolly polite.”  
   
“It’s nice to finally meet you face-to-face, Kureshima-san,” she says, inclining her head.  
   
“Ah. Yes. You as well,” Takatora says, an inexplicable awkwardness itching along his spine. “Kouta always speaks very highly of you.”  
   
Kazuraba gives him a tight-lipped smile. “Then we have something in common, it seems.”  
   
He invites her in and can’t help but notice the way she also pauses in the entranceway to crane her neck and get a better glimpse of the place, much like Kouta had on his first visit, though a slight widening of the eyes is her only reaction.  
   
“Can I get you something?” he offers. “Coffee, or tea? Or… something stronger?”  
   
It’s only two in the afternoon, but he has a feeling this person might not be one to take issue with such things. True enough, this time the slight smile that tugs at her mouth looks more genuine.  
   
“Tea would be nice, thank you.” There seems to be an implication laden in her words that, under slightly different circumstances, she would have taken the liquor.  
   
“It’s easier this way, so I’m just going to come right out and say it,” she announces, after he’s placed a glass of cold barley tea in front of her and taken the seat opposite her at the table. “What are your intentions towards my brother?”  
   
Takatora stares at her.  
   
“My… intentions?” he echoes, letting the words sit there, tentative, in the air between them.  
   
Kazuraba presses her lips together in a thin, hard line.  
   
“I know,” she says, after a moment of tense quiet, “that it is really none of my business. I know that Kouta is…  _legally_  an adult, and that by all rights he can make his own choices. But he’s… he’s naïve.” Here her icy demeanor seems to drop, fading away to reveal a look that’s almost pleading. “He doesn’t know how the world works yet. Not really. And so I’m here, asking you to please… Please just find someone else and leave him alone. There has to be someone else, right? You’re rich, you’re good-looking, you can have anyone you want, so just – ”  
   
She breaks off, voice faltering, shaking her head as if to clear her thoughts away. “I don’t… know what exactly your end goal is here,” she continues. “Maybe I don’t really want to know. But whatever it is, whatever you really want from him, Kouta doesn’t know it, either. He’s taking all of this – the money, the nearly rent-free room, the ‘kindness’ – at face value.  
   
“I just don’t want to see him get hurt,” she says, softer now, locking eyes with Takatora and refusing to look away. “Please end this, Kureshima-san. Before it goes any further. I’m asking you from the bottom of my heart. Just… cut ties and walk away.”  
   
In the yawning silence after she has finished speaking, Takatora sits there with his hand still gripping his own cup of tea, fingers beginning to feel like ice against the cold glass.  
   
He opens his mouth and then closes it again.  
   
“I,” he says finally, his voice coming out rather strained. “I think there may have been some misunderstanding?”  
   
Kazuraba blinks.  
   
“…I can assure you,” he says, clearing his throat, “that I don’t have any… ulterior motives in my relationship with Kouta. I am – realizing now how it might appear, but. Please believe me when I say that I don’t want anything untoward from him.”  
   
Kazuraba is beginning to look more and more put-off, brow furrowing as she seems to size up his words and judge their veracity.  
   
“All I really want,” Takatora finds himself saying, “is to make things better for Kouta. I… don’t know why, exactly. Just that, from the first day I met him, I enjoyed seeing him happy. And if I’m being honest, I don’t… entirely know how to make that happen without money. Without buying him things, and paying him far too much for a simple job.” He attempts a smile, though it feels wan and wry on his lips. “My father raised me to be a material man, I suppose.”  
   
Kazuraba lets out a breath and drags a hand down her face, somehow not smudging her makeup at all in the process.  
   
“So what you’re telling me,” she says slowly, “is that you have a genuine romantic interest in my brother?”  
   
His glass halfway to his lips, Takatora halts in place.  
   
“That’s,” he says, and stops.  
   
_Is that what this is?_  he thinks, and it’s like a sudden moment of jarring clarity, like a sharp slap to the face after being unconscious for far too long. Like a gong being rung in the back of his mind. It’s not as if he’s never been in a relationship before. But those had all been perfunctory – expected, and performative, without any true feeling behind them. And that, he had assumed, was simply the way relationships in real life were.  
   
He hadn’t known that this sort of thing actually existed.  
   
“Yes?” he hears himself say. “Yes, I do.”  
   
Kazuraba leans back in her seat, eyes wide and startled.  
   
“…Wow.” She laughs, abrupt and sharp with disbelief. “I just. I never would have thought it? That you were a good person. No offense intended, of course. But people with your kind of money usually aren’t.”  
   
“None taken,” Takatora murmurs. He’s seen enough behavior from his peers over the years to know the relative truth of what she says. He hardly knows if he’d call himself a good person, either. Certainly he tries to run Yggdrasill more ethically than his father did, but there’s always a limit to how moral a multi-billion yen corporation can be.  
   
“My idiot baby brother being courted by my boss.” Kazuraba is starting to look like she wishes she’d taken him up on the offer for alcohol after all, sipping at her tea morosely instead. “This is… not at all how I expected this to turn out. You know I came here today fully expecting to get fired tomorrow?”  
   
Takatora raises an eyebrow. “If anything, I might try and get you a promotion. We could use people with a backbone like yours in upper management.”  
   
Kazuraba pulls a grim sort of face. “Not to sound unappreciative, but I don’t know if I could stand that.” She leans her chin on her knuckles and looks at him thoughtfully. “I guess... I should apologize. For barging in like this and accusing you of things.”  
   
“You had every reason to be suspicious.”  
   
“Maybe so, but… Still.” She drums her fingernails on the tabletop. “I’d offer to buy you a drink or something to make up for it, but anything I can afford is probably below you, isn’t it?”  
   
Takatora huffs out a quiet laugh. “I wouldn’t say that. I’d… like that quite a bit, actually, if you’re offering. I don’t get many opportunities to go out for things that aren’t business-related.”  
   
Kazuraba nods. “It’s a date, then,” she says primly, setting her glass down with a ‘thunk’ of finality. “…Which feels like a really strange thing to say to you. I had all my threats worked out in my head, you know.”  
   
“I’m sure they would’ve been very effective,” Takatora offers, and hides a smile as sips at his tea.  
   
  
   
By the time Kazuraba leaves (their outing for drinks set for next Friday, her demeanor still apologetic despite his protests, promising to have Kouta bring over some kind of fruit basket in the following days) it is nearing three, and he stares at the clock with a frown.  
   
Kouta should have been back by now.  
   
He’s his own person with his own life, Takatora tells himself sternly. He’s with his friends. He’s under no obligation to return immediately.  
   
And yet. There’s an odd, unsettled sort of feeling nagging at the back of his mind.  
   
_Are you almost home?_  He sends the text after a moment of awkward hesitation. Five minutes later and he’s received no response, and he presses the intercom button for the front desk with restlessness itching beneath his skin.  
   
“Kouta-kun? Did you not see him, sir?” The clerk sounds puzzled. “He went up just a little while ago, but… then he came right back down and left again. He looked kind of troubled, if I’m being honest. Though I didn’t think to ask why.”  
   
_Ah_ , Takatora thinks. Something tightens in his chest. For a high-end building such as this one, he knows, the doors here are surprisingly thin.  
   
Easy to overhear things through.  
   
He’s grateful that the clerk doesn’t try to ask him any questions as he steps out into the lobby a few minutes later and jogs out the front door, wracking his mind to think of where Kouta might be. Somewhere quiet, he assumes. There’s a small park about a block away, and he tries there first, walking the tree-lined thoroughfare and scanning the benches, the winding side paths, the plaza around the fountain. There’s no sign of him.  
   
Maybe this is pointless, he thinks, slowing to a halt and standing there with his phone held loosely in his hand, a sense of weariness creeping up on him little by little. Zawame is too big a city to find someone who doesn’t wish to be found.  
   
But. There’s a memory tugging at him suddenly – of Kouta slouched across the back of the couch a few days past, tired after taking part in some kind of arts festival downtown.  
   
“When… did you start all this?” Takatora had asked. “The dancing, I mean.”  
   
Kouta had glanced up and blinked at him with those wide eyes; tilted his head to the side as he seemed to ponder it. “I guess… I was eleven? I watched someone on tv and thought it looked cool, I think. I didn’t know what I was doing back then,” he’d laughed. “Me and my friend Jun would practice at this one spot along the river where the trees kinda block the path, so less people would see us. We were pretty bad. But it was a lot of fun back then, you know?”  
   
Takatora is turning on his heel and heading for the river before he’s even really contemplated it.  
   
The place in question isn’t difficult to find. Even all these years later the trees have yet to be cut back – enormous old willows whose branches form a thick curtain across the path. Kouta is in plain sight, though, leaning against the railing overlooking the river and staring down into the water with a faraway expression. His bag is sitting forgotten at his feet.  
   
“Kouta,” Takatora says, and he seems to come back to himself with a start.  
   
“Ah, hey,” he says, turning and giving him a sheepish smile (a hint of barely-disguised nervousness underneath, his fingers twisting the hem of his sweatshirt). “You didn’t… have to come looking for me or anything. I was about to head back – ”  
   
“Did you overhear what I said to your sister?”  
   
Kouta freezes, looking a bit like a deer in the headlights. “That’s… I mean…” He claps his hands together and ducks his head. “I’m sorry! I know eavesdropping is shitty, but. I didn’t really mean to? I just heard nee-chan’s voice and got confused and then I kinda ended up standing there and…”  
   
He trails off, making a noise that sounds a bit like an audible wince, lifting his eyes searchingly, as if he imagines he might find anger on Takatora’s face.  
   
“Please don’t apologize,” he says softly. “I’m the one who should be apologizing to you. I’ve… made you uncomfortable, it seems.”  
   
Kouta blinks.  
   
“What,” he says, more a statement than a question.  
   
“I just want to make it clear,” Takatora says, “that I meant what I said to your sister. That I don’t… expect anything from you, other than what your job entails. And that if you wish, I will – maintain my distance from now on.” His voice sounds stilted and strange even to his own ears. His neck feels stiff as he bows his head. “I hope that might make you feel more at ease.”  
   
There’s a heavy weight of resignation sitting in the pit of his stomach as he moves to turn away, but he hardly makes it one step before a hand is closing around his wrist and he’s being pulled back.  
   
“I don’t want that,” Kouta says, adamant. The sheer intensity of his expression falters after a moment as he seems to remember himself, a flush beginning to turn the tips of his ears pink. “That’s not – I never said that I did, right? So… It’s fine.” He swallows visibly. “It’s not like it bothered me. Kind of… the opposite? It was just a lot to think about, y’know? You’re – you’re you, and I’m me, and it’s. Hard to believe.”  
   
It’s Takatora’s turn to level him with a look of mild confusion. “Hard… to believe?”  
   
“Well. Yeah. I mean, I thought for sure you probably had, like… a fiancée that you’d been promised to since you were both kids, or something. Rich people always had those, in the dramas my aunt used to watch.” Upon seeing the incredulous expression on Takatora’s face, his flush darkens. “Which was probably a dumbass thing to think, so. You can laugh now, I guess.”  
   
He does, hiding it behind his hand and disguising it as a cough. “No, that’s… I can see why you would make that assumption.”  
   
Kouta falls silent for a time, then, worrying his bottom lip with his teeth. “I don’t know yet,” he says finally, “if I feel exactly the same as you do. It’s hard for me to tell. Whether I like you for you, or if it’s just because you’ve helped me so much. You know? But… I definitely don’t mind it.” A pause. “Actually, maybe – ”  
   
He lifts his hands haltingly to palm Takatora’s neck, startlingly warm against the line of his jaw, and before he can so much as react Kouta is tugging him down into a kiss.  
   
His lips are chapped yet still somehow soft. He tastes vaguely like artificially-sweetened grapefruit. That is all that he has time to think before Kouta is pulling back and giving him a lopsided smile.  
   
“Well,” he says, a bit overloud, the tips of his ears now a bright red, “that felt, uh. Pretty good. I guess that must mean something, right?”  
   
“…I hope so,” Takatora murmurs, not even realizing that he spoke aloud until he sees Kouta’s eyes widen, astonishment fading into a kind of flattered amusement a second later. His hands fall away, drifting down to rest splayed against his chest, right over his heart.  
   
“Wow,” he laughs. “You know, you can be… pretty smooth sometimes.”  
   
Takatora wonders, in this moment, if he should tell him that it’s all a fluke. That he doesn’t know what he’s doing here and maybe never will. But no, he thinks, and can feel a faint smile curving his mouth, oddly at-ease despite it all.  
   
Kouta is bound to find out for himself soon enough, as long as he’s here alongside him.


End file.
